


Need and Necessity

by Artemis1000



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Anti-Android Sentiments (Detroit: Become Human), Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Moral Dilemmas, Pining, Political Expediency, Politics, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), RK1K Week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 07:04:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17361275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/pseuds/Artemis1000
Summary: Months after the androids seemingly won, their battle for legal recognition had gotten gridlocked by political infighting and public interest was fading. A kind of personal story, a love story, might revive sympathy for their cause - yet Markus found himself deeply conflicted, first by his doubts about basing empathy on a charade and then by his very real feelings for the android he shared this charade with.





	Need and Necessity

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for two prompts of the [RK1K week](https://rk1kweek.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr: Day 3 - “Fake Relationship” and Day 2 - “Markus saying he likes Connor, on TV”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor suggests desperate measures for desperate times and Markus is full of doubts.

Humans loved tragic love stories.

It was a fact Connor had learned mostly by happenstance, a mere piece of trivia filed away more because he found it quaintly charming than for any actual use it might have to him one day.

Markus was at first amused when Connor shared it with him, then simply wistful.

These had been more promising days, when things could be charming for no other sake than their own.

Nowadays, it felt like every time he talked with Connor, they were having another emergency meeting.

It would have been wrong to say that the fight for android rights had ground to a halt, it had just…

“It’s ground to a halt,” Josh said, looking exactly as haunted as you would expect from someone who had studied history and knew everything about liberation movements starting out hopeful only to end in catastrophe when momentum stilled and support withered away.

“What you’re trying to say is, the humans have grown bored of feeling guilty,” North added, her voice not quite sharpened to a snap but not far from it either.

Markus watched his inner circle attentively, gauging if he would need to interfere before the argument turned more heated than productive. Tempers were flying high these days, just like they had in these desperate days on the Jericho.

He watched Josh and North fling words back and forth, watched Simon try an intervention of his own, but like always, Markus’s eyes found Connor sooner rather than later. On him, his eyes lingered, as they always did.

Strictly speaking, Connor had returned to the DPD and wasn’t part of the Jericho leadership, but he wasn’t _not_ part of it either. Much as Markus tried to make him feel welcome, Connor kept shying away from claiming an official role with the deviants he had started out hunting, yet he was one of their best-known faces between his role as deviant hunter and the Cyberlife Tower liberation. Despite the much-televised army he had led, most humans and androids alike still associated him with the former more than the latter. Markus didn’t blame him for his discomfort, he just wished it weren’t so.

The debate petered off, mood shifting from indignant to quietly, mournfully concerned.

Now that his lieutenants had said their piece, it was Markus’s cue to speak, to bring together their diverse ideas and opinions and get them to walk a path they would and could all follow him on. It was no less daunting in peace than it had been during the revolution.

“It’s true we have made little progress gaining true supporters in politics,” he admitted, to which North and Simon nodded, pleased that he agreed with them on this point, “the politicians who have shown themselves sympathetic to our cause have mostly done so because it was a popular cause to support. Now the media’s attention is returning to other topics. If the public forgets about us, we will lose our political supporters as well. We are at a delicate point in time; we have no legislation yet, only promises and statements of intent.”

Josh nodded. “Interview requests keep going down, we’re nearly at the point where Simon and I have to ask for them instead of granting them.”

“It’s true,” Simon said, “we were downright lucky to get you that primetime interview with CTN TV. Right after the revolution, reporters were ready to _bribe_ me for a minute with you.”

“Wish I could say security risks are going down, too,” North added sourly.

Markus listened and nodded, but most of what he was doing right now was just repeating what they had already established, it wasn’t bringing them closer to a solution. Truth be told, he didn’t have a solution. “So what we need to do is keep on friendly terms with the true supporters we have, which is why I’m meeting Senator Danvers for lunch today, but mostly we need to fight for the headlines and keep up the pressure. Do we know who has reason to cut us off as soon as they can?”

This started off another round of discussion, analyzing various broadcasters and publishing houses and their stance towards androids. There was a distinctive overlap between broadcasters who had dropped them for the celebrity story of the week and those whose owners were major shareholders in Cyberlife. The same went for those whose owners made their fortune in fields which relied heavily on free android labor.

Markus was too busy with the brainstorming to pay too much attention to him, but he always paid at least some measure of attention to Connor. Even if he didn’t, he would have noticed that Connor who loved trivia and statistics still hadn’t said a word.

“So what now,” North asked when the mood was starting to turn downright desolate, “are we going to invite Gossips Weekly to report on New Jericho’s interior decoration?”

“Why not?” Josh countered. “So far, Markus had spoken to the humans about politics, about equal rights and our suffering. If they’re not listening to that anymore, we should give them a chance to get to know _us_.”

 

Josh’s throwaway comment was still on Markus’s mind long after their talk had come to an end.

“It’s not going to be enough, is it?” Connor asked once they were on their way to the meeting with Senator Danvers.

Or rather, Markus was on his way to meet the senator, Connor would be handing him off to the senator’s security detail before returning to the DPD. Central Station was just down the street from the fancy hotel Markus had his lunchtime appointment at.

It had been a sensible decision to offer Connor a ride, it didn’t have anything to do with wanting a chance to talk to him, or finally spend time with him outside of a meeting.

He felt a little bit mournful that when Connor finally spoke, it was about work again. Then, Markus immediately felt selfish for his regret. Of course, Connor would be concerned, they all were. He watched Connor roll the coin over his knuckles, not looking at him. Markus just wished…

But it didn’t matter what he wished.

“I hate thinking about what angle we should play,” Markus admitted instead of answering him. “It feels manipulative.”

“I’m manipulative,” Connor remarked and Markus looked at him, kept looking at him, not knowing what to make of Connor’s words. His face was pleasantly neutral and his LED circled blue but the pace of his coin had picked up.

“You’re a detective android and a negotiator,” he said, for he couldn’t possibly tell Connor that he liked even his manipulations. Connor _would_ nudge people into favorable behavior, gently or not so gently in the case of poor Lieutenant Anderson, but Markus just found it charming. There wasn’t a whole lot about Connor he didn’t find at least a little bit charming.

Connor’s LED blipped yellow. He turned his hand suddenly, catching the coin mid-air and snapping his fingers shut around it. He still didn’t look up. “You could give them a story they all want to hear.” His voice was quiet and still very even. “A personal story, like Josh said.”

If Markus needed to breathe, his breath would have hitched. He would have liked to pretend that he didn’t know what Connor was hinting at but he did. The journalists asked the same question in many different ways but they all asked the same one. _Is there someone special in your life? Have you ever been in love?_ Or the more brazen ones who simply assumed, _when will we meet the mystery person at your side?_ It would get them weeks of attention, months if the mystery person turned out to be someone interesting or scandalous enough – such as the man looking at him right now, a mortal enemy turned ally turned friend. It would be exactly the kind of love story humans adored.

Maybe they should really go for that Gossips Weekly interview. Everybody seemed to prefer gossip to being reminded of their people’s suffering.

“I don’t want to build our people’s future on a lie.”

Connor’s hand tightened on the coin. His LED turned yellow again and remained so. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

For the rest of the drive, Markus tried to think of a way to break the suddenly tense silence between them – and couldn’t think of a single thing that even stood a chance to succeed. He wasn’t afraid to address a crowd of thousands of androids or millions of humans at their TVs, yet saying anything at all to Connor when it was just the two of them left him feeling like everything he could think of would be clumsy or just plain insufficient.

There was too much history between them, every interaction burdened by too much weight. Sometimes it felt like they had never been as honest with another as that night when they had their face-off on the ship.

Markus still hadn’t found an answer to any of his problems by the time they arrived at the hotel.

He was reluctant to let Connor go but at least Connor seemed equally reluctant to leave.

 

They did invite Gossips Weekly. Their article about daily life in New Jericho ended up a lot less biased than many pieces by more respected magazines.

They also helped open doors for Tech Addict to report on the free android clinics popping up all over Detroit and the country; mostly underfunded, overworked garage workshop enterprises run by an eclectic mix of deviants who had walked out on whatever tech company used to own them, hacktivists, and laid-off Cyberlife techs fueled by spite for their former employer.

Markus gave his primetime interview to CTN TV.

It wasn’t going to be enough.

There were still marches, candlelight vigils and sit-ins, but they were becoming regular occurrences and didn’t make the news anymore unless androids and their allies clashed with anti-android protesters.

And there were too many people in Washington stalling, too many wealthy and powerful people who still believed things would go back to the way they had been. They wouldn’t, Markus didn’t think anybody could succeed to strip them of their hard-earned freedom but in the meantime, androids were suffering.

Right now, they existed in some legal grey area, technically still property but laws no longer enforced, reluctantly paid by humans since they needed the laborers but with no legal protection.

“I don’t know how you do it, hunting murderers not knowing if they’ll ever get sentenced for more than property damage,” he told Connor the next time they met, when he found Connor restless and haunted, explaining his latest case in clipped tones – and here Markus had felt so accomplished for meeting up with Connor without any heavy requests overshadowing it. Maybe he should have felt disappointed, he thought, but he didn’t. Not when it was the first time Connor had confided in him without prompting, blurting out what bothered him as soon as they met.

“Somebody’s got to,” Connor finally said, his voice clipped and robotic enough to betray that he was nowhere near as unbothered as he tried to pretend. He pinched his lips and let his gaze wander through the park they were wandering, eyes intent on something Markus couldn’t even take a guess at.

There were those who thought that after freeing himself of Cyberlife, Connor had found himself new human masters in the Detroit police. Markus couldn’t claim to understand why Connor had returned to the DPD but he understood they all fought their own battles in their own ways. Maybe it was good enough to know that Connor had had the freedom to choose his own battlefield.

The snow had melted, leaving behind muddy paths with more puddles than either of them cared to dodge but it was still nice. Peaceful, for sure, but then again Markus knew he would have been biased simply for Connor’s company.

Markus shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat and watched him from the corner of his eyes. “You still made the choice for it to be you.”

Connor, too, watched him. There was a small, sad smile on his lips now, it made him look gentler without taking away from his solemnity. “Says the one who took the burden of leading our people to freedom.”

“Somebody had to,” he echoed and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. Trust Connor’s quiet earnestness to leave him flustered in ways nobody else could.

They walked in silence for a while, Markus thoughts on his concerns and Connor’s, he assumed, on his cases.

“It’s not going well for us, is it?” Connor asked out of the blue when they were almost at the entrance of the park again, where they would be parting ways.

His steps faltered slightly but he didn’t need to ask what Connor was talking about. It was on everybody’s mind these days; maybe he had been wrong to assume Connor would be too occupied with the DPD to be driven by the same worries as the rest of them. “No, it’s not,” he admitted quietly.

Quieter still, only within his own mind, he recalled Connor’s clumsy suggestion and whispered, _maybe you were right, maybe it takes more drastic measures to keep the public’s interest_. But the chance to agree with Connor had passed, badly, and now it was too late to bring it up again; not that Markus’s concerns had changed. It would still be morally wrong and more harmful in the long run to base the public’s empathy for their people on a lie.

 

The need for honesty was a belief Markus held on to when more and more doors were closed to them.

Tragic stories only made headlines for so long, he would be told bluntly, off the record, but everybody knew the truth hidden even beneath that ugly truth – Cyberlife made more money than headlines of any kind ever would.

Markus held on to his belief anyway. He had wanted to be different, he wanted Jericho to be different. True and genuine, people whose word held value. They couldn’t make themselves vulnerable to the old Cyberlife spiel that android emotions were merely a particularly convincing pretense.

He held on to his belief and his caution, right until the day he couldn’t anymore.


End file.
